Saturday, December 31, 2016

Staunton, December 31 – Russia now
has a civic religion, Russian Orthodoxy, that lacks any foundation in religious
faith because the Russian state is hostile to both genuine believers and
committed atheists, viewing them as threats to the stability of the Putin
regime, according to Aleksandr Soldatov of the religious affairs site,
Portal-Credo.

“If in 2014-2914, the world around
[Russians] was destroyed to quickly and irreversibly that it caused shock,” the
religious affairs expert says in his year-end roundup, “then in 2016 this
destruction became something viewed as normal and passed into a phase of ‘stagnation’”
(http://www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=comment&id=2178).

“A
new ‘banalization of evil’” has occurred in Russia with the Russian-Ukrainian
war, he writes.And one of the consequences
of that is that “there are ever fewer people on the post-Soviet space” whose
lives are informed by religious faith or who believe in “the possibility of any
‘religious rebirth’ in general. And this too is the banalization of evil,”
Soldatov says.

Many
used to talk about “’spiritual ties’” but “now one must write about the
Yarovaya law,” whose inspiration and application has undermined faith even if
it is intended to strengthen religious organizations. Unfortunately, he
continues, the appearance of this law follows “a definite ‘logic of history.’”

“Before
1917, religion was the official ideology of Russia, and this was ‘pre-secularism.’
After 1917, the official ideology of Russian became the denial of religion, and
this was ‘secularism,’ often extremely bloody.” One of its consequences was the
birth of a church ready to put “religion in the service of atheism,” the precursor
of the current leadership.

According
to Soldatov, “after unsuccessful attempts at ‘a return to origins’ in the early
1990s, everything finally took its place: the forerunners lived up to their
mission and a time of the triumph of Orthodox atheism” occurred, one that
reflected what Moscow wanted when it organized the new patriarchate in 1943.

Consequently,
“if before 1917, the Russian state prohibited its subjects to be atheists and
after 1917 to be believers, now it prohibits both the one and the other. Is
this an absurdity, a paradox, or a nonsense? No: welcome to the never seen
before reality of ‘post-secularism’!”

As
reflected in the Yarovaya laws, Russian state policy is “equally hostile both
to convinced atheists and convinced believers.” The regime views both as
potential obstacles to the mobilization of the population by means of
convincing its members that they can only do so if they do not insist on their
own beliefs but simply accept those the state requires.

“In
order to avoid cursed fanaticism which is now held to be equivalent to
extremism and terrorism, what is needed is a religion without dogma and atheism
without nihilism” – but with a commitment to avoid getting involved in politics
except to support whatever the regime wants when it wants it.

This
“post-modernism and post-secularism Russian style,” Soldatov says, is one in
which “the private life of ‘the little man’ is not without fear but without
serious plans, hopes and prospects.”It
is in fact “the life of a vegetable,” supported by the regime’s force
structures to keep things in line.

The
Moscow Patriarchate, “acting within the limits of the paradigm of ‘post-secularism,’
does not try to influence politics or get involved in theological disputes. As
a completely pragmatic organization, which the Kremlin finds especially
valuable, it quietly extends its trade network” but does nothing to promote
faith.

“It
is obvious,” Soldatov concludes, “that in such an unfree political society, it
cannot act without official approval” and that includes allied “’Orthodox
activists’” who may appear independent but in fact are doing the work of the regime
but not that of the Lord in their attacks on others.

Staunton, December 31 – In a country
where talking about the present or the future directly can land one in
difficulty with the powers that be, Russians increasingly are making policy
arguments in terms of events in Russian history, a trend that will only
intensify in the coming centennial year of the 1917 revolutions.

As citizens of other countries know,
that opens the way not only to misinterpretations of the past in the name of
policy advocacy but to the twin errors of overlearning from the past and thus
committing equal or opposite errors or forgetting its lessons altogether and
flying blindly into the future.

But for good or ill, Russian policy
debates are increasingly going to be cast in historical terms, and it is thus
going to be a requirement that analysts both in Russia and elsewhere recall the
facts about various historical events they may not have thought about for some
time in order to understand what is likely to happen next.

“The approaching centenary of the
revolution in Russia is a good occasion to yet again reflect upon why in
history periodically occur events called ‘time of troubles,’ ‘a turnover in
state power,’ or ‘a revolution,’” Katanosov says, both as far as 1917 is
concerned and what events in that year says about others.

He then argues that one of those
most responsible for Russia’s slide into revolution was Sergey Witte. “Some
call him a genius and put him alongside Petr Stolypin,” the Russian analyst
says; “others (although unfortunately they are a minority) consider that by his
reforms Witte led Russia to the revolution.” Katanosov says he is one of the
latter.

According to him, Witte’s “’contributions’
to the destruction of Russia” are quite large and numerous, including his role
in the preparation of the October Manifesto and the negotiations in Portsmouth
at the end of the Russo-Japanese war. “But
his main ‘contribution’ … became the so-called monetary reform of 1897” when he
put Russia on the gold standard.

Many praise him for doing this
because it triggered a massive influx of foreign capital and the growth of
certain sectors of the economy, but Katanosov suggests, “this was
industrialization in the framework of the model of dependent capitalism.” As a
result, Russia became more indebted to foreign bankers, and it was sovereign
rather than private debt.

That debt amounted to 8.5 billion
gold rubles in mid-1914 and had the effect of putting the country “under the
tight control of world lenders and put it at risk of finally losing its
sovereignty – and all of this is thanks to Witte’s efforts.”Although he left the post of finance minister
in 1903, he had launched “the mechanism for the destruction of Russia.”

Whatever the truth of Katanosov’s
argument, it prompts three more general comments about invoking past examples
to urge a particular set of policies, as the Russian nationalist’s comments in
this case clearly do.

First, Katanosov is highly selective
in the facts he adduces to make his case. Second, he does not suggest what
alternative policies might have been pursued and what their effects might have
been. And third, he falls victim to the fallacy of “post hoc ergo propter hoc,”
of arguing that any event has been caused by whatever prior event one focuses
on.

There are going to be many more such
“historical” discussions in the coming year: their limitations should be
remembered not only by Russian policy makers but by analysts, Russian and
otherwise, who are trying to figure out where Putin’s Russia is headed next.

Staunton, December 31 – Given loose
talk among some in the West about recognizing a Russian sphere of influence over
the former Soviet space, a Moscow blogger has brought back yet another term
from the past to describe what he says should be the basis for the future:
These countries, Aleksandr Khaldey argues, can and will again become Russian
protectorates.

On his blog yesterday, Khaldey
argues that “the specific characteristic of Russia as a civilizational-state
formation consists in the following: it in principle cannot be a peripheral
nothing. [Instead, it] can live survive only as a center” of something much
larger and more powerful that dominates weaker states around it (cont.ws/post/476689).

“Russia always was a sovereign
surrounded by vassals,” and the latter never could or can exist independently,
he says. If they try to escape from Russia’s orbit, they can only become
protectorates or colonies of other powers hostile to Russia.Thus, Russia must ensure for its own survival
that they become again its protectorates.

“A protectorate,” Khaldey writes, is
when a weak state is in formal dependence on a stronger one. “In its soft form,
a PROTECTORATE the subordinate and dependent state formally retains its state
system” but even then “supreme rule in the country really belongs to the
stronger power.”

He continues: “In a more harsh form,
the subordinate exists in COLONIAL DEPENDENCY,’ where the patron state decides
completely all aspects of the state system and the existence of the client
state.That is, one is speaking about the
presence of external administration.”

At present, Khaldey says, “Russia is
struggling” to escape from being “an American protectorate” which he says the
US imposed after the collapse of the USSR and thus its leaders understand full
well what is at stake and why when they can, vassals – because that is what
those in protectorates are -- throw off rule by a former sovereign.

Russia’s temporary weakness is “coming
to an end,” he continues; and Western efforts to “transform the country into
the periphery of the Western global system are at the edge of collapse.”
Consequently, Russia must work to restore itself as “one of the global
civilizational centers” and restore its protectorates over its neighbors.

The examples of protectorates
Khaldey gives are suggestive and disturbing: the League of Nations mandate
territories in the Middle East after World War I, Hitler’s protectorate over Bohemia
and Moravia in 1939-1945, and Russia’s protectorate over the Karachay a century
earlier.

“At present,” he suggests, “Abkhazia,
South Osetia, the DNR and the LNR are Russian protectorates,” which all have a
strong desire to become “a component part of Russia.” In some ways, Armenia is
also “a protectorate of Russia.” And now Russia is seeking to make Ukraine,
Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and later Georgia its protectorates as well.

It isn’t yet “politically correct”
to speak the word “protectorate” aloud, he says; “but all experts understand
that in fact that is what is being discussed: all these former republics are
clients of Russia” and they will become even more so as Russia’s economy grows
and their trade with Moscow increases.

There is “one obstacle” to this: many
of the leaders of these weak states don’t want to become so obviously
subordinate to Moscow; but Russia’s success in promoting that status is
highlighted by their complaints.Such
whining to the West, however, will not “stop the machine of history.”

And Khaldey concludes: “Russia will
again be the protector for the former union republics” and they will soon
recognize “the historical inevitability of this restoration and the
hopelessness of resisting it.”